Asian Male
Varsity Soccer 11th and 12th Grade (won County title both years)
2x AIME Qualifier (6 and 7 on exams, respectively)
8th place Nationally at NAQT (Quizbowl) HSNCT - Given top 40 (All Star) individual award
1600 SAT, 36 ACT
4.68 GPA Weighted, 4.01 Unweighted - 11 APs, 5 on all exams
National Merit Scholar
NJ Science League - won top 10% plaque for biology freshman year, placed 16th overall out of 350 sophomore year for chemistry, placed 13th overall out of 360 junior year for physics.
President for Quizbowl, Mu Alpha Theta, Math Club in Junior and Senior Year
Planned reaches:
Stanford
MIT
Harvard
Columbia
Yale
Princeton
UCal@Berkeley
Duke
Planned matches:
Cornell
Rutgers Honors
JHU
Brown
Dartmouth
NYU
UT@Austin
UPenn
I understand that many of my choices might have a very low shot, which I’m okay with. Please let me know my chances for both reaches AND matches.
You certainly have excellent stats and a good STEM hook which will help a lot with the schools with extremely low acceptance rates. You are very well qualified for these schools but I hesitate to give chance in a percentage because I feel that I can not accurately do so
Sounds like there’s some wishful thinking here. There’s no such thing as “no budget limitation as of now.” Either you can afford all of these colleges or you can’t. If you don’t KNOW if you can afford them, you really shouldn’t be applying for them in the first place. For the exception of Rutgers, every one of them are either private or out of state, which means, chances are, you’re going to Rutgers whether you like it or not. Even wealthy families don’t have $60,000 a year to pay for college.
Bro. You have great test scores, great ECs, and solid awards. However, are you really confident enough to say that Cornell, JHU, Brown, Dartmouth, and UPenn are match schools?!
These schools have single digit acceptance rates, and most people who apply to these schools will have similar stats as you, if not better.
This isn’t to say that you won’t get in to those schools; like everyone, you have a shot at getting in. But it’s a severely, severely, misguided thought to consider those top-tier schools as “matches.”
I love the confidence, I really do. But if you really consider those schools “match schools,” then that level of over-confidence may get the better of you when you write your essays, get your LORs, etc.
I appreciate all the advice, but all I want right now are just chances. I understand that there are many different factors, such as money and match vs. safety as the people above said, but really what I need right now is opinions on what schools I can get into and stuff like that. After I have that kind of info, I’ll focus on money and match vs. safety aspects. Don’t want to sound rude and all the advice is still very much appreciated.
None of your matches are matches except NYU, UTAustin, and Rutgers, as was said above. Your chances at JHU, Cornell, and Duke are the best on your adjusted reach list.
No one on this forum will give you numerical chances of your probability of getting into any school unless the school has some sort of guaranteed admissions criteria that you meet.
None of the schools you listed have guaranteed admissions criteria. All of the schools you listed are incredibly difficult, highly ranked schools.
Thinking about the “percent chance” or “chance” of you getting in is futile. You seem to be very passionate about STEM, so just continue following your passion and see which schools will be the best for you that match that passion. It should also match where you want to live for the next four years (and arguably one of the most important years) of your life.
You have a list of some of the reachiest schools in the country. The majority of your matches are most certainly reaches as well. You have wonderful stats but at these schools it’s so much more than that. Every part of your application will matter. Volunteer hours, leadership, essays, LORs… It’s way more than academics. IMO your chances, as an unhooked applicant, are no better than what’s published by the universities.
Unless you are a TX resident, UT is a reach too as they are mandated to take most of their students instate.
If Rutgers is your state school, that should be good back up.
IMO, you need to think about pulling together a better list of actual match schools. Look for schools with acceptance rates between 30 - 50%.
I would also encourage you to forget about prestige hunting. Look at what appeals to you most about an individual school’s environment and culture. You have every single Ivy on your list. These schools are much more different than they are alike. Delve into why they are unique, narrow your list, and figure out why you would the colleges would think you would be a great match for them. Without that, your “why us” essays are going to fall flat.
I would recommend two true safeties, one with rolling admission so you have an early acceptance. A safety is a school that is both affordable and that you would be excited to attend.
Certainly have a couple of reaches but the bulk of your list should be matches. Real matches! Not schools with sub 20% acceptance rates.
For the comments above, are you guys saying these are reaches because they are reaches for everyone due to single digit acceptance rates, or are they reaches because I’m lacking in some part of my application? If both, please explain why. Also, for the comments above the reason I’m doing this is not as
much for prospective colleges as it is to see the most selective college I can get into. HOWEVER, this is not the college I want to go to, but what it does do is give me a field to see what is the best fit and what is the best financially and from a STEM perspective. For example, if from the advice given, I have no choice at Stanford or MIT or any such high-level STEM college, I will look further down. Thanks!
No, your application isn’t “lacking” anything. But then again, compared to other kids applying to T20s? Then, your application might be lacking. What we’re saying is that out of the kids who developed apps to diagnose rare diseases, kids who published 5 books, kids who are international / national championships at activities x, y, and z, your application is not special. It is most certainly impressive, but at these schools, impressive is normal.
I think why most comments are critical is because you seem to not have a great idea of what college is supposed to mean. Going to a good college isn’t so that you can slap “MIT” on your sweatshirt and flex on your non-MIT attending friends; its about finding a college that actually fits who you are. And if that fit is at MIT, great! But based on your list of literally only tough schools, I don’t think you really have a sense of if those colleges fit you.
No, you don’t NOT have a chance at MIT or Stanford. You have a shot at those schools, and dare I say - your shot at those selective schools is probably a lot higher than the average Joe. I think you know this, and you’ve taken that confidence way too far by calling schools like UPenn “matches.”
You said that one of the reasons you posted is to see “what is the best fit” for you. That’s like walking into a Walmart and asking strangers if they think you’ll fit at MIT. You determine your fit. Not us; we can help you explain parts of the application process, help you explain if you should even bother applying somewhere, etc. We’re not here to calculate your chances numerically and tell you where you belong.
There’s nothing in your resume that really jumps out at me as being your passion, other than Quizbowl. And as an academic bowl, it reinforces that you are a smart, strong student. What else matters to you? That’s what colleges will look for.
UPenn can get strong students anywhere. What they want is someone who’ll contribute to their student body in more nuanced ways.
Is 2x AIME not significant, then? I did decent on them, but if it isn’t a big deal, then okay. It’s interesting, though because a) it is very easy to be poor academically but great at quizbowl (I would say 50% of the top 40 individual weren’t great students) and b) I put WAY more effort into math than quizbowl, but it seems that quizbowl looks like my edge, if I were to have one.
You have a good profile; however, I would not put Cornell JHU, Brown, UPenn in your match schools. Theses schools are highly competitive and luck is heavily involved as well.
As I always say, it’s a 0% chance if you don’t apply. If money is really no issue, then just pay the application fees and let the colleges decide whether or not they want you. Your application is great, you have a couple national awards. Write some amazing essays and your application will be complete.
Just make sure to have a safety ready, and a couple match schools. It’s not impossible for you to get into those schools you listed, but with their acceptance rates, and you not being an Olympic gold medalist or Malala Yousafzai, it’s really give or take.
Your stats are superb. The schools that we are telling you are reaches are reaches specifically because the large majority of applicants also have superb stats, and these schools have acceptance rates in the single digit percentages. The other big issue is that a lot of the accepted students are either legacy, athletes, or URM. Being Asian will not help you at schools that care about “diversity”, which is most of them in the US.
There are some things that you cannot do anything about (such as your ancestry). There are some things that can can have some control over. Some of these, such as your grades and test scores, you have done exceptionally well. Your ECs look good to me also.
The other thing that you have control over is making sure that you have at least two safeties. For us our safeties were in-state public universities and universities in Canada. For you even McGill and Toronto would be near safeties due to your great stats and their stats-oriented admissions (the same was true for my kids with only very slightly lower stats). Depending upon what state you are from you are likely to find great safeties in-state.
One question that I have is whether you would be recruitable for soccer. If not, then I do not think that your chances are any better than the overall acceptance rate at your many reach schools.